GRACE


Greetings to you all in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,

I thank God who graciously gave me this opportunity to write an article on the topic GRACE. The previous topic on our RaiseLives Lent Convention was the old covenant, and the next topic is Jesus Christ. the word which connects these two topics is Grace.

Grace is a commonly used word in Christian circles. 

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, Grace is defined as approval or kindness, especially (in the Christian religion) that is freely given by God to all humans:

According to Marion; The definition of grace could be “God's life, power and righteousness are given to us by unmerited favour.”

As we are discussing the biblical order, let us look at the origin of the word Grace 

Let’s start at the beginning. The first use of the word ‘grace’ in the Bible is found in Genesis 6:8: “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.”

The Hebrew word used here to define grace is indeed hen. Its derivative, Hanan (חנן), is often translated as “to be gracious” or “have mercy “. In Psalm 6:2, the Psalmist says,

“Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am languishing; heal me, O LORD, for my bones are troubled.”

According to King James Version Grace is mentioned nearly 170 times in the Bible.

Acts is one of the books in the Bible that talks more about the Grace of God. Hence it is called “the word of his grace” and “the gospel of the grace of God.”

Being gracious is God's character, 

In Exodus 34:6 we read God as a gracious God.

And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,

Saved by the Grace of God. 

Different religions have different concepts of salvation. The Christian way of salvation, according to Ephesians 2:8. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God"

In the history of Christianity Martin Luther proposed 5 Solas as a principle of salvation based on the Bible. One among them is Sola Gratia, which means Grace alone says sinners are saved as an unearned gift of God’s grace, “not as a result of works, so that no one may boast”

The Bible also talks about misusing grace, 

Romans 6:1,2 says, What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 

We are abusing grace when we feel free to Sin More. Abusing grace occurs when we misunderstand Bible verses and feel free to sin more. Grace is not the freedom to sin. Grace is the freedom to choose not to sin. Let us not misunderstand, but to understand the truth and live a fruitfull life. 

Be gracious to others,

As followers of Christ we are called to be gracious towards others. As the Bible says,

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. Luke 6:36

Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Ephesians 4:32

The God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. Amen.

Article by Pratibha Garasiya. 



Comments

  1. Priscilla Papiya DurairajMarch 8, 2022 at 3:11 AM

    Thank you so much dear Pratibha for your article. Continue to write and inspire others. God bless you abundantly.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eucharist

Image
Eucharist , also called Holy Communion or Lord’s Supper , in  Christianity , ritual commemoration of  Jesus ’  Last Supper  with his disciples. The Eucharist (from the Greek  eucharistia  for “thanksgiving”) is the central act of Christian worship and is practised by most Christian churches in some form. Origin in Scripture The story of the institution of the Eucharist by Jesus on the night before his  Crucifixion  is reported in the  Synoptic Gospels  (Matthew 26:26–28; Mark 14:22–24; and Luke 22:17–20) and in the  First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians  (I Corinthians 11:23–25). According to the Gospel accounts, Jesus established the practice at the Last Supper, a traditional  Passover   Seder , when he blessed the bread, which he said, was his body, and shared it with his disciples. He then shared a cup of wine with his disciples and told them that “this is the blood of my covenant, which is po...
Read more

MINISTRY

Image
Introduction The term Ministry comes from Latin ‘ministerium’ which means ‘activity of a servant, service, duty’. In Middle English ‘ministere’. Later it became Minstri. Our Lord Jesus Christ talks about ministry, “My Father will honor the one who serves me”. John 12:25. If we want to get honor from Almighty, we should do the ministry with sincerely. The word ministry appeared in the bible 22 times. Healing Ministry The Bible talks about Jesus, the Son of God who went about doing good and healing all kinds of diseases – bringing wholeness and healing to people in their body and mind. When Jesus had risen from the dead, he gave the authority and power to his disciples to drive out demons and heal all kinds of diseases. Since then, the church has been engaged in the ministry of healing. Biblical Understanding of Healing: We must clearly understand the fact that Jesus never attempted to heal people without any relevance nor benefit to the Kingdom of God. When Jesus began his minis...
Read more

MISION

Image
Greetings to you all the name of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, Today we are in the 27th days of LENT, and today we are going to discuss about Christian Mission.  Synonyms – assignment, task, journey, undertaking, goal, pursuit, aim, purpose etc. Opposite words – rest, stoppage, lazy We will be discussing what is mission, its origin, why want to talk on mission, your mission generally or common and Gods mission, Mission: Generally - mission is an important assignment or task given to a person or group of people. Typically – mission involving travel Biblically – a sending (with special purpose) The word Mission comes from the Latin word Missio (n) and the verb ‘Mittere’ appears quite frequently in the vulgate, which corresponds, to the word ‘send’ in English Bible. Biblical scholars have related to these two words “mission” and “sending” for the equivalent term in Hebrew Bible “Salah”, “Apostello” and “Pempo” in both the LXX and New Testament. Salah and Apostello stand for biblic...
Read more